Tag: MMA in movies

At last, at last, a remake of the 1989 Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle, Kickboxer, is on the way. Put your worries to rest, Nation, the Karate Kid ripoff once described as “the dumbest action picture of the year” will finally be told the way it should. Not since the Power Rangers reboot have I been so excited to see another blatant cash grab! Focus group testing FTW!!

The film will also be introducing Alain Moussi as its lead. Mr. Moussi is a world-renowned stunt man / martial artists, performing in such films as (X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, IMMORTALS, PACIFIC RIM, WHITEHOUSE DOWN). “Alain is a star and will be an amazing leading man,” said Filed “Like Vin in RIDDICK, Alain will make this movie very special and this KICKBOXER reboot will be the start of an amazing franchise”.

Additional cast will be announced shortly.

A foreign director’s big screen American debut, starring a stuntman, an MMA fighter, and a professional wrestler. HOW COULD IT GO WRONG?!

In addition to lining up roles in the next Expendables movie, the next Fast and Furious movie (yay new ideas!), and Warner Bros. The Athena Project, UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey also managed to land herself a role in the upcoming Entourage movie, based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire*. The first on-set footage of Rousey in action was released earlier today, and based on what we’ve seen, it appears that Ronda will be playing the role of a leather-clad, overreactionary badass with a potty mouth and penchant for violence. You know, a real “Ronda Rousey” type.

In the scene above, Ronda takes a tactical baton to the vehicle of the titular character, “The Entourage,” while the driver character begs her to stop and insists that she knows him. Classic driver character, amiright? (I actually have no idea, as I’ve never seen an episode of Entourage and will likely never see this movie either.)

The “Entourage” movie is tentatively scheduled to hit theaters on June 12, 2015, which will also mark the occasion that Rousey is once again forced to go agro on a group of dude-bros who watch this shit.

We love MMA-related movies as much as the next blog here at CagePotato. Heck, every 100th one isn’t even stupendously horrid.

So needless to say, it caught our attention today when we read that Oscar nominee Edward James Olmos was excited to be a part of a project whose story includes an MMA fighter protagonist and would also co-star former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. MMA Junkie had the strange report:

The Oscar-nominated actor is part of a new film project called ‘Monday Nights at Seven’ that stars actor/director Marty Sader in a love and life story against the backdrop of the MMA world. But what is unique about the movie in its infancy is that the team behind it is seeking to have it funded through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding site that lets supporters contribute financially in exchange for rewards once the financing goal is hit.

Sader will play the lead role as an MMA fighter, Anderson Silva will be his coach, and Olmos will play Sader’s father. But the movie’s release isn’t a sure thing just quite yet. That’s kind of up to you, dear reader. And so far, things are not looking great. The film’s Kickstarter campaign runs until the end of this month and has a goal of $500,000. So far, Junkie reports that it has raised just over $10,000.

*SPOILER ALERT* Georges St. Pierre is guaranteed to lose his next big fight. He will finally meet an opponent that he can not out-wrestle for 25 minutes and his next foe will be able to trade punches with him at will. GSP will positively get his ass handed to him. Sorry Johny Hendricks, you can stop reading now because this post has nothing to do with you.

“Batroc has no superhuman abilities, but is in peak physical condition in every respect. He is an Olympic-level weightlifter and has extraordinary agility and reflexes. His leg muscles are particularly well developed enabling him to leap great distances equal to an Olympic athlete. He is an expert hand-to-hand combatant and specializes in savate (French-style kickboxing). He is also a skilled military tactician, having formerly been in the French Foreign Legion.

Batroc is also an experienced thief and smuggler, and can speak both French and English. Although, as a mercenary, he does not hesitate to perform any number of criminal acts for his clients, Batroc has, by his own rights, a strong sense of honor, and he will turn against any client whom he feels has unfairly deceived him into committing crimes to which he might not otherwise have agreed.”

(We’ll give Anderson this, he has an ability to facially express himself that not even Ernest P. Worrell could hold a candle to.)

Good afternoon, Potato Nation, Danga here. As many of you may or may not have realized/elated over, I have been out of the office since last Thursday, first taking a trip down to New York City, then heading out to Boston to move into the apartment at which I currently reside. Aside from being called a “fahkin retahd” by nearly every citizen who shared the road with me, it was a relatively painless move, but one that left me without Internet access for a good three or four days, which in Internet time is roughly 6 months.

Of course, today is a new day, and with it comes a bit of mixed news. Regardless of who you feel deserves the next shot at Anderson Silva, the fact that “The Spider” is turning down fights in the weight class he resides over in favor of a possible superfight against GSP is a frustrating, if not equally intriguing prospect for MMA fans to digest. But as it turns out, Silva’s absence from the octagon in the near future may also be linked to something a little harder to swallow. Mainly, movie stardom. Because according to a report from metronews.ca, Silva may be heading to Canada down the line to promote and star in a major-budget MMA film called Tapped.

Written (along with Hostel’s Eli Roth), directed, and starring RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, the first trailer for The Man with the Iron Fists hit the interwebs recently, and we gotta say, it looks like Kill Bill fucked The Raid: Redemptionin the remains of Game of Death. In a good way.

In feudal China, a blacksmith who makes weapons for a small village is put in the position where he must defend himself and his fellow villagers.

And that position is apparently a seven clan battle that quite possibly carries out tournament style. If Bloodsport, The Quest, or really any movie in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s career has taught us anything, it’s that the tournament setup is far and away the greatest movie formula ever invented. And hey, our favorite San Shou practitioner appears at the 1:09 mark, where he delivers a monologue that literally must have taken days to remember.

I shouldn’t have to point out (but am going to anyway) that the film also appears to have hot Asian chicks in decreasing amounts of clothing. Lord knows I’m in based on that alone, but how about yous?

With the premiere of The Expendables 2 just a couple of months away, it seems like the former UFC Light Heavy/Heavyweight champion’s film career is just be beginning to take off. Aside from his returning role as Toll Road* in the aforementioned Sylvester Stallone-lead action extravaganza, he also has two other projects either completed or in post-production this year alone. One such project, Hijacked, sees him take on a role with a little more meat, alongside such stars as Vinnie Jones and Dominick Purcell. Although the IMDB page has yet to add a plot synopsis, the Youtube page that houses the trailer provided the following:

Special Agent Ross’s (Couture) plans to reconcile with his ex-fiancé are ruined when she boards a private jet that is targeted by hijackers working for the same crime lord he is chasing. With no time to inform his team, Ross wriggles his way aboard the aircraft and risks it all to save the love of his life.

So basically, it’s kind of like Air Force One, minus the awesomeness of Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford, and thankfully without the suspension of disbelief necessary for us to believe that a woman could ever be Vice President (Sorry, Mrs. Close). Then again, considering Couture’s character is seeking to reconcile with an ex, it will be interesting to see Captain America play against type.

(‘Okay, final offer. You take me back in the UFC and I’ll give you this hat that I made out of a sofa. Going once…’)

Before he burns any bridges with the UFC, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson might want to take a look at the cautionary tale of Roger Huerta. After losing what was supposed to be his last match in the UFC before running off to a land of riches and pain-free adulation in Hollywood, Huerta now says he might like to stick around and see where this fighting thing takes him. And what caused this tremendous shift from the guy who signed a development deal with Lion’s Gate Films and has been very vocal about his displeasure with the UFC in the past? From the sound of it, this acting plum isn’t quite as sweet as Huerta thought it would be:

“I’m still open to acting,” said Huerta. “Hopefully we get something going with that, but I’m not going to prioritize (acting) now. I’ll still prioritize fighting. If the UFC wants me back, I’d be willing to go back. …We started looking at the things we were going to do with Lion’s Gate. We’ve looked over some roles, but nothing that I’ve wanted to sink my teeth into (yet).”